


Cradle

by MelliaBee



Series: The Sarcophagus Stories [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Avengers Tower, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Discussion of Infertility, Domestic Avengers, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family, Hope, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2020-02-29 03:12:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18770032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelliaBee/pseuds/MelliaBee
Summary: Hand in hand, Steve and Peggy face their future, but Hydra still poses a threat, and Tony is building something in his workshop - and married life in the Avengers Tower has its own set of joys and challenges. Takes place before and during Avengers: Age of Ultron. Sequel to 'Sarcophagus.' No slash, no smut.





	1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One**

* * *

 

An honestly ridiculous amount of eggs sizzled cheerfully in the pan, filling the kitchen with the delectable smell of breakfast as Peggy Carter Rogers turned the page of her newspaper With her free hand, she flipped the rashers of bacon absently, far more focused on reading between the lines of the world news.

Astonishing what reporters could get wrong, these days.

"Peg-o-my-heart," Steve Rogers hummed softly into her ear, arms sliding warm around her waist. Startled out of her absorption, Peggy jumped and dropped the spatula, making him chuckle at her surprise. Smiling, she settled back into his hold, feeling his strong heartbeat against her spine. For such a big man, he could move incredibly quietly when he needed to.

"Smells good," he told her, kissing her cheek and then leaning them both forward so he could get a better look over her shoulder at their breakfast. "Ham and eggs? Must be a holiday."

Peggy slapped the hand that was sneaking toward the spatula. "It's proper bacon, you Philistine, not ham, and I'm determined not to burn it this time. Set the table, will you?"

Thwarted in his attempt to sneak a taste, Steve laid his face against her hair before pulling away and going to the cupboard. Peggy turned, letting the newspaper drop, and watched as he pulled the silverware out of the drawer.

It was all still so incredible to her, even after months of marriage. Steve Rogers was alive and married to her, and setting the table for breakfast. It was all very wonderful, everything she had dreamed of and more, and suddenly the sheer joy was almost too much to bear.

Breakfast could fend for itself for a few minutes.

Setting down her the spatula with finality, Peggy crossed the kitchen in three steps, catching the front of his shirt as he turned. Taken by surprise, he ran into the refrigerator and nearly dropped the silverware, but in the end she got her kiss quite satisfactorily. His free arm closed around her waist when she tried to beat a retreat, and he grinned a little dopily down into her face.

"Good morning to you too," he told her, sounding slightly out of breath, and she laughed up into his face. He seemed in no hurry to let her go, pulling her in for another kiss, soft and lingering.

"The eggs will burn," she finally warned, making no move to pull away.

Steve shook his head, face very close to hers, voice sinking to a rumble that she could feel in her bones. "I like burnt eggs," he told her very seriously, trying not to smile.

Peggy pursed her lips. Any other day she would be more than happy to let breakfast sit, but having eggs at all still felt like a luxury to her, and she wasn't about to let them go to waste. Mind made up, she quirked her eyebrows dangerously and pulled out the best weapon in her arsenal.

Steve did drop the silverware then, yelping at the sudden attack she launched on his ribs. The man was incredibly ticklish. He tried to twist away, laughing helplessly, and she followed, continuing her relentless onslaught with a wicked gleam in her eye.

"Wow, this is better than a movie."

Steve stopped so suddenly that she ran into him, and they both tried to gather up the shreds of their dignity. Tony Stark stood in the doorway, arms folded, watching the show with a sort of triumphant look on his face. Peggy felt herself flush a little as she reached to straighten her husband's shirt, pulled askew by her tickling.

Trust Stark to catch them romping around the kitchen like a couple of schoolchildren. Sometimes living in this tower had its drawbacks.

"Stark," gasped Steve, trying to steady his breathing. "Ah - you joining us for breakfast?"

Tony ignored the question. "Are you ticklish? Captain America is ticklish. _Saturday Night Live_ is never going to believe this."

"Then it's a good job they're not going to find out, isn't it?" asked Peggy pointedly, stepping around the table and fixing him with a stern glare. Tony visibly reconsidered. Peggy and Pepper and Natasha had formed a very close three-way friendship, and if he bothered one of them, it was a sure bet the others would make him pay.

"Of course not." He wisely decided to play it safe, strolling across the room to look in the pan. Peggy rapped his knuckles sharply when he reached for a piece of bacon, and he withdrew with an injured air before finally getting down to the business at hand.

"Came by to give you this," he admitted, tossing a flash drive in his hand. Peggy snatched it out of the air, slipping it into her pocket as she listened to Tony prattle on. "It's everything JARVIS pulled off the servers from the last Hydra base we raided."

Steve nodded gravely. He and Peggy had a date in the afternoon, but they would go over the information later and update the team all at once if there was anything new to be gained from it.

Having delivered his data, Tony promptly took himself off, airily turning down Steve's renewed offer of breakfast and claiming a science thing with Bruce. He winked saucily as he left. "Have fun, kids."

Steve turned to his wife with a warm twinkle in his eye. Peggy refused to blush, on principle.

"You're terrible," she told him - and then Tony stuck his head back through the door.

"By the way," he said, "Is something burning in here? I think something's burning in here."

Peggy groaned and flew to save the eggs.

 

* * *

"Should I pop popcorn?"

Bruce Banner looked up from his experiment. "I'm sorry?" he asked, a little confused.

"I should pop popcorn," Tony Stark decided, bouncing across the room. "It would be a _crime_ to not have popcorn right now."

"What are you talking about?" asked Bruce in confusion, taking off his glasses and stepping around the end of the table. For answer, Tony spun around, gesturing expansively toward the large glass windows on one wall of the lab.

"Look at this!" he declared dramatically, and Bruce made a mental note to check Tony's sugar intake. "We're in the middle of one of those mushy cuddly movies that Pepper likes, and we don't have any popcorn."

Following Stark's eyes, Bruce finally realized what he was talking about. Steve and Peggy were visible through the glass, apparently getting ready to leave the tower after the morning's work. They were always very professional in front of the others, but anybody could see how they stood closer together than absolutely necessary, brushing each other's fingers, smiling suddenly for no reason at all.

Steve was incredibly happy these days - happier than any of them had ever seen him, and the proud, sweet look in Peggy's eyes when she glanced up at her husband was so intimate that Bruce cleared his throat and looked away, nodding quietly. At least one Avenger got to be in a stable, loving marriage. Steve deserved all the happiness he could get.

Behind him, Stark kept talking. "I mean, guy likes girl, guy loses girl, guy gets girl back with the help of his amazingly brilliant and talented friends, guy and girl get married - it's like one of those movies. We need popcorn."

"Exactly which friends are you talking about?" asked Bruce dryly. Tony ignored him with the ease of long practice, still studying the couple on the other side of the glass. Picking up a pencil, he held it out at arm's length and squinted past it as though he was a painter getting perspective on his subject.

"They're doing it wrong," he suddenly announced, dropping the pencil with a clatter. He was unusually tightly strung today, and Bruce regarded him thoughtfully before taking a second look at the couple outside. They looked fine to him. "Doing what wrong?"

"Marriage," Tony answered shortly, rubbing his chest. "They're doing marriage wrong. Now that they're married, they should be fighting about the color of their drapes or something. Why aren't they arguing?"

Well if that didn't say something about Tony's parents, Bruce would eat his slide rule. "Tony…"

"I don't even remember what color their drapes are," Tony interrupted. "Do they actually have drapes? JARVIS, does Cap have drapes?"

Bruce tried again. "Tony, that's - "

"Captain Rogers currently has blinds installed," the voice of the AI announced imperturbably, as though the interior design preferences of the tower's inhabitants was not an unusual topic.

"Blinds." Stark threw his hands up despairingly. "See, somebody needs to educate them about the way these things work. They're still all gooey-eyed over each other, and they've been married for how long?"

Bruce frowned, taking his friend in. Tony had been erratic all day, fidgeting in and out of the lab, and more than once sending things crashing to the floor. Now, rubbing his chest absently, he was scowling into thin air, apparently thinking hard.

"Tony," Bruce started cautiously, "they don't have to argue in public to be healthy. Actually, they're probably the happiest married couple I've ever seen."

It was the truth. His own childhood had been damaged by dysfunctional parents, and he had never quite been convinced that happy marriages were actually real. At least, not until Steve Rogers had claimed Peggy Carter as his bride, and they had made their home in the tower.

Through the window, Peggy turned to get her hat, and Steve followed her with his eyes, grinning bashfully when she turned around and caught him at it. Laughing, she said something, and he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"What if you argue _and_ make out?"

It took Bruce a minute to realize that Tony was talking about his own relationship with Pepper. Suddenly the man's concerns made a lot more sense. If there was one thing Iron Man was afraid of, it was vulnerability, and Pepper Potts was a very tender spot for him. Uncomfortable, Bruce took refuge behind the computer screen again, perching his glasses back on his nose. "Not that kind of doctor, Tony."

 

* * *

The sky was bright and blue, with just a handful of puffy, white clouds sprinkled across it, and the weather was surprisingly warm for autumn. Steve Rogers stretched his legs as he stepped over a row of seats and settled down next to his wife. "Hot dog?" he asked, and Peggy poked at the rustling paper in his hands, selecting the one without ketchup. She preferred mustard - American ketchup just didn't taste right to her.

The stands weren't full - this was very late in the year for a baseball game, and it wasn't a major league. Still, it was baseball, and that fact alone was enough to make Steve gleefully break out his cap and sunglasses. His wife wore sunglasses too, but she'd drawn the line at a baseball cap, opting instead for something wide-brimmed and fetching that made him want to kiss her every time she put it on.

Peggy leaned up against his elbow, and he shifted to put his arm around her, tucking her up against his side as she unwrapped her food. She had been sensitive to cold ever since being thawed out, and could get quite chilly even on a warm day.

"Player eighteen," she pointed out, taking a bite and gesturing with her chin. "That's Mildred's grandson."

Interested, Steve followed her gaze to where the young man stood, swinging two or three baseball bats to limber up his muscles. They didn't know him personally, but his grandparents were in the weekly veterans lunch group that Sam Wilson had talked them into joining.

Ostensibly they were here to see their friends' grandson. In actual fact, they were there because Steve hadn't been to a baseball game in an age, and this gave him an excuse to ask his wife on a date. The last time he'd bought tickets for a game, the discovery of a small Hydra cell in the basement of the Denver mint had forced them to miss all but the very end of the last inning.

"So, where is the wicket?" Thor asked, biting into his own hot dog, and squinting at the field. Dressed in a plaid shirt and an obligatory baseball cap, with his long hair pulled back, he looked more like a giant lumberjack than anything else. Stark was probably going to call him 'Paul Bunyan' for a week.

Initially confused, Steve turned a suspicious look on his wife and caught the barest hint of a smug smile before she looked innocently up into his face. He knew that look - she had used it on everybody from Colonel Phillips to Director Fury, and it usually worked. They knew each other far too well, though.

"Peggy?" he asked, and she blinked solemnly over the tops of her red-rimmed sunglasses.

"I haven't the least idea where he picked that up," she informed him, voice dripping with false sincerity, and then took a long, deliberate drink, teasing him with her eyes.

"Cricket has wickets," Steve tried to explain to a confused Thor. "It's a different game, a British game. Baseball has bases." He had invited Thor to come along, hoping to get the big alien interested in the game. It would be nice to have somebody to play catch with - someone who wouldn't get killed if he forgot and threw the ball too hard.

The man on home plate swung the bat experimentally and then sank into the traditional batter's pose, waiting for the pitcher. Thor watched with interest.

"They have a unique stance before hitting the ball. Is it tradition?"

Steve didn't answer for a moment, watching closely as the pitcher wound up. The ball whizzed past the batter, slamming into the catcher's glove.

"Kinda," he finally answered, distracted by the game. "Lets the batter get a better angle on the ball."

The batter swung wildly at the second ball, and Steve shook his head in disgust. Thor took another bite. "He needs more practice," the alien prince decided, "and perhaps a better club. What is that one made of?"

Steve promptly launched into a very involved explanation of wooden and metal bats, as well as the respective pros and cons of each. Thor nodded attentively.

"Metal is better," he decided. He had left Mjolnir at the Tower, but was beginning to have serious second thoughts. This game looked to be good fun, but he wished he could go down and show them how a ball ought to be hit.

Peggy tipped her head back against Steve's shoulder, watching his face fondly as he earnestly argued the finer points of baseball. "Well, it depends. It's all in the swing, see. Babe Ruth used a wooden bat."

"Babe Ruth played for the Yankees," Peggy reminded him slyly. Steve had always been a baseball fan. She distinctly remembered him organizing a game during the war. The team had been made up of a mixture of French, English and American troops, with a handful of German POWs to even out the sides. There had been an incredible language barrier, and a ferocious argument over whether cricket or baseball pitching rules should be followed. The whole effort had ended when Steve accidentally hit the ball out of sight, and one of the POWs had unwisely tried to escape.

Steve tightened his arm around her. "Don't rub it in," he joked ruefully. Growing up in Brooklyn, he had hated the Yankees as a matter of principle. Then he raised his eyebrows. "I didn't realize you followed baseball."

"Well, someone very important to me happened to like it," Peggy commented airily, neatly crumpling her empty hot dog wrapper into a little ball. "I'm more of a cricket fan myself."

"You're so British," Steve chuckled, and she pursed her lips, trying not to smile back at the wonderful warm look in his eyes. "Really? You only just now noticed?"

He kissed her then, a little bolder in public now than he had been in the early days of their marriage, pulling down the brim of her sun hat to hide their faces from intruding eyes and trusting to the anonymity hats and sunglasses provided. Peggy dropped her empty wrapper to lace her fingers around the front of his jacket and pull him closer. Their happiness was still so new, so sweet that they couldn't help but treasure every moment together.

Thor beamed and looked away, back at the game. The two little children in the row ahead stared up at him with wide eyes over the backs of their seats, and he nodded cheerfully.

Naturally, that was when Steve's phone started to buzz.

"Cap?" It was Natasha. "We've got a tip on some gun-runners in Chicago with Hydra connections. Extraction in five minutes; get to a clear area."

"I don't suppose you could wait until the next inning?" Steve asked regretfully, but he was already checking the ground around their seats for anything they might have dropped as Peggy collected their empty wrappers. "My team's up to bat."

"Funny, Rogers." Natasha's voice was dry. "We've got your uniform in the quinjet. Five minutes."

Out on the field, Mildred's grandson hit a home run. Steve cheered the loudest, retreating backwards up the stairs after the others, watching the game for as long as he could.

 _Maybe one of these days_ , he thought as he folded Peggy's hand inside his and kept pace with Thor from the stadium to the nearest open area for extraction, _I'll manage to stay for a whole game_.

It seemed unlikely.

 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is the product of over three and a half years of researching and writing. (If you need a bibliography, let me know; I’ve got one for it!) _Cradle_ has long been posted on fanfic dot net, but I got several requests to put it up here too, so here you go! I hope you like it. :) If you do, please leave me a review to let me know!
> 
> This is the sequel to my other story _Sarcophagus_ , so if you haven’t read it you might want to. Won’t make a ton of sense otherwise. The T rating is for frank discussion of some health issues.
> 
> Note: Peggy is cooking British-style bacon, which looks very different from American bacon - or Canadian bacon for that matter. To the uninitiated, British bacon can be confused for ham, which is Steve’s mistake in this chapter.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

* * *

Chicago was a fiasco.

In retrospect, they should have realized much earlier that the tip was actually a trap. The base was deserted, and rigged computer banks exploded as soon as Stark tried to extract any information. Thrown backwards, stunned, he had struggled to get up again, looking for all the world like a giant red-and-gold beetle until Thor hooked a mighty hand under each arm and hauled him to his feet.

"You okay?" Steve asked, stepping forward, concerned.

The movement saved his life. There was no pop of breaking glass or crack of gunfire. All the windows in the room had been blown out in the explosion, and no doubt the gun had a silencer. The only sound was Steve's pained grunt as he went to his knees.

Peggy was at his side in a heartbeat, forcing him below the level of the windowsill as he tried to stand again.

"Don't move," she ordered crisply, the undertone of worry plain in her voice. She had never enjoyed seeing his blood on her hands.

"Peggy," he protested, trying to get up, but she dug her fingers into his uniform, working to simultaneously hold him down and apply pressure to his wound. "They're fine," she promised breathlessly, "they've got this. Just stay down until I can tell how bad this is."

The other Avengers had leaped into motion as soon as their captain's knees hit the floor. Clint had three arrows speeding on their way before Thor tore past him, shattering what was left of the window. Stark, on the other hand, paused. "You need evac?" he asked, but Steve shook his head firmly.

"I'm okay," he panted. "Back Thor up - keep an eye - out for an ambush."

Stark nodded and then was gone. Natasha's hand flew to her ear, and Peggy could hear her over the shared comm system. "Bruce, bring the quinjet down and get in here with a couple of those compression bandages. Cap's been hit."

Reluctantly, the captain settled under his wife's hands, face drawn with pain and concentration, completely focused on his team. Peggy struggled to get out of her leather jacket and pressed the lining down against his back with all her strength, trying to stop the bleeding. The bullet should have killed him - would have, if it hadn't been for his unexpected movement and the near-armor strength of the StarkFiber his suit was made of.

Clint crouched beside the blown-out window, another arrow ready to let fly at the first sign of an attack. He winced at the dragging sound of metal against cement on the roof a few minutes later. "I hate it when he lands," he muttered crossly. Clint had tried over and over to teach Bruce to land the quinjet, but despite it being almost fully automated, with state-of-the-art sensors, Bruce still managed to scratch it. Every time. Even Peggy had learned to land it better than he could.

Then Stark's voice crackled over the connection. "Um, guys?" He sounded oddly grave. "We've got civilians."

Steve didn't wait for the bandage, twisting out from under Peggy's hands and bolting for the door. "Steve!" she called after him with exasperation, and then ran after him, gun in hand, Natasha at her heels.

 

* * *

The trouble with being an Avenger was that they had fans. The trouble with having fans was that sometimes, in dangerous situations, these people would be more likely to stand obliviously in the middle of danger, staring in delight at their favorite Avenger as if the whole thing was some kind of three-dimensional action movie.

For this reason, Peggy was better than the rest of the team at getting civilians under cover.

"Federal agent," she announced, flashing what looked like a badge and keeping her tone brisk and efficient as she pushed through the gathering crowds that jammed the sidewalks. "Step inside the buildings, away from the windows. This is not a drill. For your safety, step inside."

Even wounded, Steve had quickly out-run her, vanishing somewhere ahead of her. Fully aware that the fight could come their direction at any moment, Peggy scanned her surroundings, gun at the ready as people reluctantly began trickling indoors.

The suddenly widened eyes of the bystanders around her was her only warning.

Peggy managed a half turn before a massive shove sent her flying to the side, Steve's body sprawling over hers as a shot whistled over their heads. Civilians screamed and finally scattered, the danger touching a little too close to home. Peggy reached for her husband's gun - hers had been knocked out of her hand as they hit the ground - and fired over his shoulder at the shadowy figure on the roof.

The sniper had found them.

Steve rolled off of her, and she scooted sideways toward the shelter of a parked car before realizing he wasn't behind her. Whirling, she saw him kneeling over a young man - a civilian. Apparently the shot meant for them had hit somebody else.

Thor was charging for the building with a shout, hand outstretched to summon his hammer, but it would take him precious seconds. The sniper rose to his knees and aimed again, straight at the back of Steve's head.

Peggy saw red. Popping up from behind the car, she braced her hand on the edge of the windshield and got off three more shots in rapid succession, driving the sniper away from the edge of the roof before he could take the shot. Then Thor left the ground as Mjölnir slapped into his palm, and she knew her part of the fight was over. He could fly, which made pursuing rooftop snipers infinitely easier.

"Hey, Peg? Could use a hand." Steve's voice was short - she'd heard it a thousand times in urgent situations. Sliding his gun into her waistband, she hurried over, retrieving her own weapon on the way.

The captain was on his knees, hands clamped tightly around the young man's thigh. "Look at me, son," he was saying, voice warm and steady, betraying none of the pain he himself was in. "Keep your eyes on me, that's it. Everything's going to be fine." The young man was shuddering, fear and agony and shock taking over, but he hung onto Steve's reassuring words like a lifeline.

Peggy took one look and collared the first person in reach. "Call an ambulance," she ordered briefly, and then crouched behind her husband, sliding her hands around his waist to unbuckle his belt. The spread of blood down his back made her heart clench, but she pushed aside the emotion in favor of efficiency. Moving to his side, she helped cinch the belt tightly around the fallen man's leg above the gunshot wound, scanning the rooftops the whole time. Just because one sniper was out of the picture didn't mean there wasn't another one lurking somewhere.

The immediate scare over, curious people began to gather. "Hey, isn't that Captain America?" somebody called, and suddenly everyone had a cell phone or camera pointed in their direction. Steve bowed his head a little further, trying to ignore the attention and keep the wounded man calm, but Peggy jerked to her feet. The area wasn't safe, there was a distinct possibility of another sniper lurking nearby, and Steve deserved his privacy.

The civilians would simply have to go.

"Agent Carter, SSR," she snapped and flashed her wallet at the crowd, smacking down the nearest camera that pointed in her direction. It was only half true - she had changed her name with marriage, and the SSR didn't technically exist anymore, but it made for a nice cover. Besides, there was power in invoking obscure acronyms. Living in post-New-Deal America had taught her that much. "This location is unsafe. Clear the area. No pictures."

It had been the first thing Peggy learned in the army. An air of authority and a firm voice could work wonders, especially when paired with a right hook. Nobody questioned her or asked to examine her badge, which was fortunate, since it was only her Avengers Tower keycard. The gun at her side probably helped, as well as the fact that shots had been fired.

Thor returned a few minutes after the emergency vehicles arrived, slamming down from the sky and badly frightening one of the paramedics. There was another surge of photo-happy fans, but this time the police were there to help control the situation. Steve looked up from where he bent over the gurney, carefully extracting his hand from that of the wounded man being wheeled into the back of the ambulance.

"Report," he ordered, wiping his bloody hands against each other and waving off an emergency worker who, seeing Steve's bullet wound, was approaching with a first aid kit. Peggy promptly intercepted the concerned paramedic, relieving him of the kit and rifling through it for some gauze even as she kept an eye on Thor's face. The Norse alien shook his head, and his face was tight.

"The one who shot you is dead, as are the others" he announced wearily, "but Stark captured one of his companions alive."

"Was - did the sniper have a metal arm?" Steve demanded, and Peggy could hear the strain in his voice. She moved behind him, renewing pressure on his wound with her handful of gauze until he staggered forward a step, but he hardly seemed to notice, hanging on Thor's words.

"No," Thor answered. "No, they were both of flesh and bone."

Not Bucky, then. Peggy felt every muscle in her husband's back slacken with relief as his unspoken fear drained away. She drew a long breath of her own, and then turned to summon Bruce, who was already hurrying in with his own first aid kit and an air of distracted determination that she knew even Steve would give way to.

 

* * *

The quinjet was very quiet on the way back. To nobody's surprise, the attackers had been Hydra, with Hydra's penchant for cyanide. The Avengers had come away with no useful information, two wounded members, and twelve civilians hospitalized. Their only prisoner was currently stuffed into one of the storage units of the jet, and he wasn't talking.

Natasha was the first to speak, nursing her leg. One of the Hydra thugs had been unexpectedly quick with a knife. "That went well," she drawled, eyes dark with frustration.

Steve had a grim look around his jaw, but otherwise betrayed no sign of the pain he was in. A compression bandage was tight across his back, throbbing with each pulse of his heart, and his mouth tasted like blood. The bullet had not gone through - he would need it removed once they got back to the medical center in the tower. It grated painfully against bone with every breath, but he was pretty sure nobody except Peggy could tell.

"You said the building was clear, Stark." He held his voice level, trying not to let his frustration seep through. Tony looked tired - really tired - and for just a moment Steve was tempted to let the conversation wait. Still, if there was a problem, he figured it was better to hash it out now while it was fresh. "What happened? The entire wall was rigged to go off."

"It's called human error," snapped Tony, trying to rub his face, and almost jabbing himself in the eye with his gauntlet instead. His voice was unusually heavy with sarcasm, even for him. "Ever heard of it? Oh no, wait, you're Captain run-all-day-with-a-bullet-in-my-back America, never mind."

"That was uncalled for," Bruce remarked after a minute of surprise. The billionaire usually wasn't quite so caustic. Tony rolled his eyes and then slid his faceplate home, presenting an impenetrable mask to the world.

As the minutes stretched on, Steve couldn't tell whether Stark was sleeping or sulking. For all he knew, the man could be playing video games in there. He considered trying to restart the discussion, but a slight shake of Banner's head stopped him. After all, the doctor knew Stark better than any of them, and he trusted Banner's instincts.

For the rest of the flight, Iron Man remained silent in his corner, Bruce watching him steadily.

 

* * *

"What on earth were you thinking?" Peggy demanded, storming down the hall after her husband.

Steve had kept up a good front before everybody else, but Peggy could tell how much pain he was in. She'd had quite a lot of practice during the war, and he hadn't changed a bit since then. Just because he was strong and healed quickly didn't mean a bullet in the back hurt any less, especially after the adrenaline and drive of action had subsided.

After the quinjet landed, he had quietly slipped away. She waited just long enough to shuck off her jacket and alert the medical wing before hurrying after him.

"Hey," said Steve mildly. He was halfway down the hall, doggedly working his way toward the elevator. Peggy ignored the bloodiness of his uniform, stepping close under his arm and taking some of his weight.

"When a man gets shot, he's supposed to wait for medical assistance before running five blocks and getting into a fight," she scolded, pushing the button for the elevator.

Steve huffed a half-laugh and then winced at the movement. This discussion was an old one. They'd had it so many times, they both practically knew it by heart. "Couldn't help it, Peg. Besides, you were out there just as fast."

"I wasn't the one with a bullet in my back," Peggy retorted, bustling him into the elevator when it opened, and slapping the button for the medical floor. Steve leaned his shoulder and head against the wall. Now that everybody was home and safe, and the situation was over, he could feel himself crashing. He really wished he could take a deep breath, but anything more than shallow panting sent pain seizing up his insides.

Peggy didn't say anything else for a while. At some point his eyes must have closed, but he could feel her move behind him and start undoing the buckles of his harness, letting the heavy straps slide forward over his shoulders and fall to the floor.

"Stark'd have a heyday if he knew," he mumbled as she started working on his gloves. "You takin' m' things off in the elevator."

"Stark has a filthy mind," Peggy replied calmly, pulling off the second glove and sweeping up the tangled mess from the floor. The doors opened, and she took her place under his arm again. "Come on, let's get you fixed up before you heal over that bullet entirely."

 

* * *

One thing that had improved since the war was the pain medication. Peggy still had vivid memories of digging bullets out of Steve's body as his flesh quivered in agony, Bucky and Dugan holding him down. Morphine had only ever taken the barest edge off for him, and eventually he had refused to take it altogether.

"It doesn't do much for me," he had admitted. "Save it for the other guys."

He still carried an old bullet actually, embedded too deep near his spine and other internal organs to be easily removed. Long since healed over, it still set off the occasional metal detector in Tony's lab, much to the inventor's annoyance, since the captain wouldn't tell him what exactly was doing it.

Yes, modern medicine was much better - even if it left Steve a little loopy and sluggish.

"Here's lookin' at you, kid," the captain mumbled as he regained consciousness. Peggy looked up from the information on Tony's flash drive that she'd been perusing, smiling as she met his eyes.

"You probably say that to all the girls," she teased, reaching out to take his hand. He beamed at her touch, something tender and breathtaking leaping up in his unguarded eyes. Pain medication always left him with his soul laid open for her to see.

"Just the one I'm married to," he countered, eyelids fluttering as he fought off the effects of the drug. Then he frowned, adorably petulant. "Don't s'pose you can stop the walls from wobbling?"

Peggy's lips twitched with amusement as she reached to turn the IV drip down. Her husband's eyes almost immediately began clearing as his powerful metabolism worked to clear up the drugs in his system. He shifted uncomfortably and tried to sit up, but her hand on his chest stopped him at once.

"Lie down, captain," she ordered firmly. "Even you don't get over a bullet to the back that easily."

With a sigh, he lay back, eyes intent on her face, bringing up his hand to cover hers. "You okay?" he asked suddenly, and she hedged, avoiding the question, tangling her fingers with his.

Truth be told, she'd been worried. In the time since Steve had rooted Hydra out of SHIELD, there had been a number of attempts made on his life. When he went out, they could both feel eyes on their backs, sometimes even when they were in disguise. It was disconcerting and worrying, and days like this when he ended up in the medical wing were her least favorite.

Then again, she was married to a man who carried a target on his back, both literally and figuratively. They both knew the crosshairs of the underworld would always be leveled at him.

The click of ridiculously expensive high heels in the hallway heralded Pepper's arrival. "Oh, hi - you're awake," she noticed, setting a tablet on the edge of the bed and meticulously beginning to straighten the clutter on the table. "Is your back feeling any better? I can get you some more medicine if you'd like."

Steve shook his head, edging higher on the pillows until Peggy gave him a firm look. "Thanks, but I'm okay. What's on the tablet?"

Pepper made a little face. "I'm afraid your guess is as good as mine. One of the computer banks didn't blow up completely, and we got off what we could. It's encoded, but JARVIS is running diagnostics now."

The words were hardly out of her mouth before the captain turned to look at his wife. "Peggy?" he asked, but she already had the tablet in her hands, tapping busily away, biting her lips.

"Paper," she ordered, not looking up. Steve winced a little as he reached for the clipboard with his medical records on it, flipping the pages around so the blank backs were to the front before handing it over.

"She's one of the best codebreakers we ever had," he explained to Pepper. His pride in his wife was very apparent. "She can crack just about anything."

"You're exaggerating again, darling," Peggy pointed out absently, words muffled by the pen she was holding in her mouth. "Do let me concentrate."

Steve just grinned.

It took her a little over an hour, working in tandem with JARVIS, but in the end Peggy sat back with a pleased hum of triumph. The tablet flashed as lines of data resolved themselves, and Steve's face was bright with pride in her success. Then the light faded in her eyes, and she frowned, leaning over the screen.

"Peggy?" Steve asked, sitting up again. This time she didn't stop him, instead leaning forward to hand him the data pad.

"Is that what I think it is?" she asked, voice tense. The color drained from Steve's already too-pale face, and he looked up with steel in his gaze.

"We need to call Fury. Now."

 

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

 

* * *

Glass shattered against the wall, and Tony cursed long and fluently. Behind him, Clint jolted to his feet and walked to the window, arms tightly crossed across his chest. Thunder rolled around the tower, and Thor loomed over one end of the conference table.

"They swore it would be safe," he rumbled. "We left it in their hands as a gesture of good faith, and they waited this long to tell us?"

Peggy stifled a sigh, blinking tired eyes. Being the liaison between the Avengers and what was left of SHIELD could be a thankless job. She'd spent the entire morning trying to pin down Fury, and then the entire afternoon trying to get a straight answer out of the man.

"I don't know any more than what I've told you," she explained again. "All they said was that it is missing from the place it was contained in. I doubt they would have even told us that much if we hadn't found it referenced in that encoded file from Chicago."

Truth was, the remnants of SHIELD hadn't told the Avengers much about anything since the Hydra fiasco in DC. The rubble of the Triskelion had taken ages to sort out, and other SHIELD strongholds had been obliterated or infiltrated at the same time. Even this much later, documentation was only beginning to come in, and nobody liked what they were seeing. Hundreds if not thousands of things had gone missing. Files, hard drives, laptops, alien artifacts, blank permission slips, security badges, flash drives, keys, data tablets - the list kept growing.

Evidently Loki's scepter was on that list as well.

The worst thing was, nobody was entirely sure what had happened to it. If it had been taken, was it by a Hydra sleeper agent, or was it by some perfectly ordinary citizen who wanted a souvenir from the destruction? And when had it disappeared - or had SHIELD ever even had it in their possession at all? Perhaps it had been entrusted to undercover Hydra agents straight off the bat.

The whole thing was an absolute nightmare, and Steve was getting a headache to go along with the pain in his back. Theoretically, he shouldn't have been up at all - but then, he'd never been one for the rules.

Getting up from his place at the table, he went to stand beside Clint, shutting out the buzz of voices behind him. Rain was beginning to fall, thick and fast, and lightening flickered through the clouds. Thor was most definitely upset.

"Hey, you okay?"

Clint hesitated, and then nodded, turning surprisingly clear eyes to the captain. "Yeah, I'm good. Let's get this job done." The set of his chin spoke of his determination, and Steve felt his own confidence rise when faced with the other man's spirit.

After the big showdown in Washington DC, when the Helicarriers had blown each other up, and Alexander Pierce paid the traitor's price, Steve had dragged himself back to consciousness in his hospital bed and for one single moment had dreamed that they'd defeated Hydra.

Of course, he'd had that dream before, after seeing Schmidt die and before running the _Valkyrie_ into the ice. With the head of Hydra gone, surely the rest would be easily defeatable. Peggy had thought the same. For months, she and the Howling Commandos had scoured Europe in search of remaining Hydra units. They had almost succeeded. Indeed, they had come the closest to succeeding than anybody ever had, either before or since.

Now it was time to try again.

"Right," he said, and turned back to the room at large, commanding their attention. "Thor has the most right of anybody on this planet to the scepter, so it's our responsibility to find it; let him take care of it for once and for all. If SHIELD won't work with us, then we'll go off of what we've got. Are you with me?"

His team looked up at him, and he could see the determination in their eyes.

Hydra would need to beware.

 

* * *

After the meeting, Steve hung back and watched as Peggy finished putting her things away. At some point she had pulled her hair back with a pencil, and a few dark tendrils had escaped along the nape of her neck. For the thousandth time he wondered how he had managed to be blessed with her as his wife.

"Let me carry your books?" he asked as she picked up her notebook and data pad. She laughed at him, and he put on his most earnest expression until she gave in.

"Steve Rogers, you act like you're five years old," she told him firmly, and he grinned unrepentantly down into her face as he held the conference room door for her.

"Guilty as charged," he admitted, falling into step beside her. She was a little paler than usual, and he watched her, concerned.

"Stop that." She swatted him lightly on the arm, and he lifted his eyebrows, caught red-handed.

"Stop what?" He tried to look innocent, but knew he had failed when she shot him her most no-nonsense glare.

"Stop looking at me like I'm going to break," she ordered. "You're the one who ought to be in bed. I'm just tired, that's all. It's been a long day."

It had been a long day, but that wasn't why Steve was worried, and they both knew it. Peggy Rogers wasn't completely well. Even now, months later, she still suffered some lingering aftereffects from being frozen. She kept going with her usual determination, but she chilled easily and tired more quickly than she used to, and it bothered him.

Entering their suite, Peggy unlocked her filing cabinet and slipped her meeting notes in beside another slim file of papers. Steve caught one of her hands and held it, rubbing it gently until it was as warm as his own. He loved that he could touch her like this, casually, intimately, and it was even more incredible that she would let him.

"I still think you should check with Banner again," he said at last, running his thumb across the wedding band on her finger. The doctor had finally stopped running medical tests at Peggy's insistence, but Steve wasn't entirely satisfied.

Peggy shook her head decisively. "I'm tired of being a pincushion, Steve. You know the feeling."

The captain did know the feeling, quite well in fact, and reluctantly conceded her point. Throughout his life, and especially since Project Rebirth, he had been poked and prodded by countless doctors and nurses. Reading her victory in his face, Peggy softened. "I'm fine, just a little chilly."

"Warm you up?" he asked, opening his arms and fixing her with the endearing look that she had never quite been able to refuse. With a long breath, she settled against his chest, and he held her, pressing soft kisses in her hair until she warmed in his arms and hummed contentedly into his collar.

It was incredible, really.

After Steve Rogers' presumed death, Peggy had been terribly lonely, closing everyone out and focusing on her work to the exclusion of everything else. She had fought with her peers for a modicum of the trust Steve had always freely given her, and the struggle had been exhausting both mentally and emotionally.

And now - now Steve Rogers had come back into her life, bringing with him all of the love and honor and unwavering trust that she had thought lost forever. She had forgotten how it felt to trust somebody unreservedly; how it felt to care without fear of being considered weak. It still stunned her - being loved so completely and wholeheartedly. To be married to that man, to spend every hour knowing that he belonged to her was one of the most heady feelings of her life.

"You know we'll have to put Bucky on hold for this," she finally said, leaning back so she could get a good look at his face. He nodded gravely, looking over her shoulder at the slim file in the drawer that was all they knew of the history and activities of James Buchanan Barnes. The lines of responsibility across his forehead had never been deeper.

"I know," he admitted quietly, and she knew how much it cost him to say it. Leaning into him again, she wound her arms around her husband's shoulders and held him as closely as she could.

Steve had been looking for Bucky ever since he was well enough to leave his hospital bed after the fall of SHIELD. Peggy had joined him in the search, and together they had scoured every inch of the databases and news sources they had access to. Sam Wilson had been an enormous help - from his place in the VA, he heard some things that Steve would never have discovered any other way.

Still, the search was slow and discouraging, coming in last and at odd moments due to the more pressing problems that kept arising. And now, Loki's scepter was lost and Hydra was bent on revenge, and the project would be put on hold yet again.

"We'll work it out," she whispered into his ear, and felt him smile against her throat. "We took down Hydra before, darling. We can do it again."

" _You_ took them down," Steve corrected, voice slightly muffled against her skin. "I chopped off one head, but you kept cutting off all the others."

There, that was another thing Peggy loved about her husband. He always gave her credit for her work. It was unnecessary, but very gratifying. She enjoyed the feel of his arms around her for another moment and then leaned back so she could see his face again.

"Very well," she said crisply, and her eyes danced with determination. He watched her, the beginnings of hope sparking in his face as she spoke with decision. "They had better watch themselves then, because this time they'll have to deal with both of us."

Steve kissed her then, long and sweet, and she leaned into him with perfect confidence.

Apart, each was formidable.

Together, they were unstoppable.

 

* * *

"How's your chest doing?"

Tony Stark visibly jumped at the unexpected sound of Bruce's voice, and then tried to brush it off, taking a long drink from the mug sitting on a stack of clipboards. "Fine. Strong and manly. How's yours?"

Bruce raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. Tony squirmed. "Stop looking at me like that," he ordered abruptly, spinning back to his holo-table.

"Tony…"

"Look, I'm fine, okay?" Tony did something clever with a holographic elbow joint, pointedly trying to ignore the fact that he could feel Bruce staring at him. "Hey, wow, look at the time. You should be in bed, Brucie-boy. Bedtime for all good little scientists and their not-so-little green friends."

Doctor Banner turned away, slowly walking down the length of the lab. He ran his fingers along the edges of the tables, idly toying with a prototype fiberglass Iron Man glove.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Tony," he finally said, and his voice was very low. "But the team does need to know about it."

The holographic elbow joint suddenly zoomed in as Tony's hand jerked. The billionaire tried to blink innocently. "I have no idea what you're getting at, Banner."

"Peripheral neuropathy," Bruce said. "I'm guessing right axillary."

Neither man moved for a moment, and then Tony looked up. He eyed the doctor carefully, and then apparently decided denial was futile.

"How did you know?" he finally asked instead, looking down at his hands, where they lay flat on the table.

Bruce shrugged. "Educated guess. You've been fidgety lately - not getting enough sleep, but I put that down to Pepper being gone. Natasha could tell that something was up too. Then you kept rubbing your chest, and things finally came together. How long has it been since the surgery?"

With a sweep of his fingers, Tony cleared the screen before snapping it off. "Long enough that I thought I was done with side-effects," he growled. "This started up months ago, not long before Cap's wedding. I thought it would go away…" he cut himself off abruptly.

"But it's been getting worse," Bruce quietly finished. "What did the doctor say?"

Tony bounced restlessly on his toes, eyes looking everywhere but at his friend. "Told me to try massaging around it, gave me some medicine to rub into it, and basically said 'good luck.'" He hesitated before continuing. "He did give me some stronger pain meds, but I don't like to use them."

Bruce understood. Tony Stark had struggled with substance abuse years before any of them knew him. With the support of first Pepper and Rhodey, and then the rest of the Avengers, he had been improving, but prescription pain medication was an easy thing to slip with.

"Does Pepper know?" he asked, and Tony snorted, nodding.

"Surprised me with a hug, and watched me go straight through the roof," he remembered wryly.

Leaning his elbows on the table, Bruce surveyed his friend thoughtfully. He had done his research before confronting Tony. Everything fit - the irritability, the sleepiness - everything. Tony always looked tired, but he had looked even wearier lately. Then Natasha had told him about the explosion inside the Hydra base, and the way Tony had been momentarily unable to get up after the piece of cement hit him, and everything came together.

"Would you like to try meditation with me?" he offered cautiously. "It's been known to help nerve damage."

Tony shook off his sober mood, shaking his head and turning back to his technological toys. "I'm not the type for all that stuff. There's got to be a technical solution for this. I'm Iron Man; I can figure it out."

The topic was closed, and Bruce knew that pushing would do no good. Tony had done all the touchy-feely talking he would do tonight. Shifting the mock gauntlet in his hand, he made to put it down and then paused, examining it more closely.

"Um, Tony, what is this?"

Looking up, Tony saw what the doctor was holding and visibly brightened. "What does it look like?" he asked, suddenly eager, as though the previous conversation had never happened.

"Well, I thought it was a glove for the suit, but there's no opening for the hand." Bruce frowned, inspecting the wrist joint before looking up sharply. "It's robotic," he stated, almost a question.

Tony nodded once, flipping on the holotable again. "Eliminating human error," he announced grandly, pulling up his blueprints. Apparently his failure to notice the rigged computer banks was still bothering him.

"By building a robot." Bruce's voice was flat.

"No," Tony corrected, grinning widely. "By letting JARVIS join the party."

 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So - that's what's wrong with Tony. Bet none of you saw that coming. But I have plans...
> 
> Oh, in case you were wondering - peripheral neuropathy is a fairly common side-effect that can follow major surgery, and can often develop weeks or even months after the actual surgery. There's a lot of different kinds, but basically the nerves have been damaged so they send messages to your brain all the time telling it that you're in pain. So you genuinely feel pain - but there's no easy way to fix it. Pain medication can help, and some have found relief through techniques like meditation or massage.
> 
> I could go on - but I won't. :) Thanks for your kind comments. Y'all are a great set of people. Have a good day!


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

* * *

 

Peggy opened her eyes and wondered what had woken her up. The room was dark and quiet, and the lit numbers on the bedside clock told her it was past midnight.

It wasn't unusual for her to wake up suddenly. Both she and Steve had seen more than their fair share of horrors, and more than once she had woken to find him sitting bolt upright or reaching to touch her, struggling to distinguish dreams from reality. Peggy wasn't a sound sleeper either. In the first week of their marriage she had given Steve a black eye, fighting off a nightmare, unused to having somebody else in her bed.

He had been very understanding, if rather startled. She had been mortified.

Still, this sudden awakening didn't seem to be nightmare related. She had no recollection of a bad dream, and her husband was fast asleep, breathing deeply. He wasn't usually a heavy sleeper, but his body was still healing from the sniper's bullet.

Rising up on her elbow a little, Peggy looked down at him in the dim glow of the moonlight - her big, sweet, American lover, arm heavy across her waist, sprawled in their bed. Heart swelling fondly, she ran her eyes across his face, memorizing each line for the thousandth time. He was so incredibly precious to her that sometimes the sheer depth of her love for him made her heart ache.

She was just reminding herself that he needed his sleep and she probably shouldn't wrap her arms around him and kiss him awake when something made her pause.

They were not alone.

Somebody was in their rooms.

Very cautiously, Peggy started to sit up, but forgot to take into account her husband's sleeping habits. They had quickly discovered that no matter how they fell asleep, Steve nearly always ended up wrapped around his wife. Now, at her movement, he buried his nose more deeply into her shoulder and mumbled something indecipherable in his sleep. His arm curled closer around her, palm warm on her spine, and for just a moment Peggy wavered. Stark had excellent security on his building; surely nothing could get in.

No, there it was again - the slightest of sounds.

"I'll be right back, darling," she whispered into his ear, and slipped out of his unconscious hold, careful not to jostle the bed too much. If it was Tony Stark, she was going to have his hide.

Gun in hand, Peggy crouched low, stepping softly down the hallway and keeping close to the wall. Whoever it was, they were in the front room. Reaching the doorway, she dropped to the floor and rolled behind a couch. She and Steve had strategically positioned the furniture with situations exactly like this one in mind.

"Stop right there," she announced, rising to her knees and training the gun on the shadowy figure she could just barely make out. "I am armed, and will shoot. Identify yourself."

For a long moment, neither one moved. Then the figure began to walk steadily towards her, and raised an arm. The dim light from the window glinted off metal, and Peggy's heart skipped a beat.

"Barnes?" she faltered. She knew Bucky had been given a metal arm, although she had only ever seen pictures. "Barnes, is that you?"

The figure didn't stop its slow advance, clanking softly. It was tall, taller than she remembered Barnes ever being - taller even than Steve.

Peggy Rogers made a snap decision, set her teeth, and pulled the trigger.

 

* * *

The gunshot jolted Steve wide awake, and he automatically threw himself sideways to cover his wife, only to realize she wasn't there. Panic flared up in his heart, and then his hand found the empty space beneath her pillow. Chances were good that she was the one who had fired the shot.

Peggy looked up calmly and tried to hide her smile as Captain America barrelled out of their bedroom. He was in his nightclothes, carrying his shield, and had the most fantastic bedhead.

"Good morning, Captain," she greeted him cheerily, and he blinked back at her, groping absently for the light switch.

Steve had been in love with Peggy for a very long time.

He had been attracted to her ever since she punched Hodge in the face on the first day of training, and knew he was a goner when she helped him rescue Bucky against orders. The day she kissed him goodbye, he'd known she would always be the only girl for him - and then she joined him in the twenty-first century, faced down Fury, and took Steve up on their long-delayed dance, and he discovered he loved her even more than he had seventy years before.

On their wedding day, Steve figured a man's heart couldn't hold any more love. This had to be it, the culminating height. Things simply couldn't get better than this, he'd thought - only to be proved wrong the next morning as he watched her wake up in his arms.

Even then, it didn't stop.

Waking up next to her in the morning, falling asleep with her hair tickling his nose at night, cooking and cleaning and working and dreaming together and eating burned eggs out of the supposedly non-stick pan that Jane Foster had given them for their wedding - married life just kept getting better. And now as Peggy looked up at him, gun in hand, dressed in her nightgown and standing over a fallen tangle of metal, Steve fell in love all over again, so hard that he actually lost his breath and could only stare giddily at the wonderful woman who was his wife.

Peggy cocked her head with a smile and put a hand on her hip, although he didn't miss the fact that she kept her gun warily trained on the metal at her feet. "Are you going to keep staring at me, or are you going to help me figure out what this is?"

Dragging himself back to the issue at hand, Steve crossed the room to her side and pulled his eyes away from her long enough to look down at the thing on the floor. It looked like a clumsy mock-up of an Iron Man suit, but there was nobody inside it.

"Something of Stark's," he guessed, and prodded it with the edge of his shield. "JARVIS, is this thing active?"

JARVIS didn't answer, which wasn't unusual at this time of night. Sometimes when Tony couldn't sleep, he would create upgrades or reboot his AI. With a sigh, Steve bent to pick up the thing, hefting it over his shoulder. Peggy shot him a worried look.

"Are you sure you're up for that?" she asked, referencing the healing bullet wound. It had been an ugly one, but a couple days of rest had him well on his way back to normal.

"I'm fine," he promised. "Gotta get this back to the mad scientist downstairs." He turned to the door, but she stopped him, coming around to rake her hands through his hair, finger-combing it until it looked more acceptable. "Wait," she told him decidedly. "I'll come with you. If Stark's sending robots in here, he's getting a piece of my mind."

Steve paused, intrigued. "You're coming with me dressed like that?" he asked, and she tipped her chin up defiantly.

"What's wrong with the way I look?"

Steve carefully kept the corners of his mouth from twitching as he looked his wife up and down, but the sparkle in his eye gave him away, and he could see her blush faintly at his frank admiration. "Nothing," he finally decided emphatically. "But I won't be responsible for anything Tony says if he sees you like that."

Peggy looked down at her nightgown - the soft, fetching one that she knew Steve liked best. "I suppose you're right," she admitted. "He is his father's son, after all. Give me a moment - I'll fetch my robe."

 

* * *

Steve swung the metal suit off his shoulder and onto a lab table with a resounding crash. Then he straightened, fixing Tony Stark with his sternest look.

"What did you do to it?" demanded Tony, dismayed. He pulled off the face mask and brandished a screwdriver, poking at the wiring inside.

"I shot it." Peggy leaned against the doorframe, arms folded across her chest. She did not look amused. "What was your creation doing in our apartment, Stark?"

"It is yours, isn't it?" Steve interjected, pointing to the large Stark insignia stamped on the inside of the face mask.

Tony frowned at the suit and then looked at Peggy with a trifle more respect than he usually used. "How many times did you shoot it?"

"Once," Peggy answered. "It was dark; I thought it was Hydra."

Scratching his head, Tony took another look at the suit and then threw both hands up in the air. "One bullet in the dark, and you just happen to hit the wire cluster in the arm and short out the whole thing. No wonder my connection went dead. Remind me not to sneak my stuff into your place at night any more."

Steve and Peggy shared a look of consternation, which Tony completely ignored. Bringing up a screen, he tapped away busily. "All right, let's start from the top. What was your reaction when you saw the Iron Junior unit?"

"I shot it," Peggy said again, very dryly. "'Iron Junior' - that's a dreadful name."

"It's in the works," Tony promised. "Prototype. I need to know the impression this will have on the average unsuspecting person. Not that either of you are average, but I'll make do. How was the volume on the voice? Too loud? Too soft? Not enough AC/DC?"

Peggy came over to look at the screen as well. "There was no voice. JARVIS wasn't working in our apartment either. I think you left him on mute."

Tony opened his mouth to protest, and then shut it, sliding things around. Then he sat back as Peggy poked at something on the screen. "Oh."

"Thank you, Miss Carter," said JARVIS almost instantly. "Sir, the time is now 3:28 AM. I recommend a glass of warm milk before retiring to be-"

Tony waved a hand and the computerized voice cut off mid-word.

"Now I remember why I had him on mute," he grumbled, raking a hand through his hair.

"We're missing the main point here." Steve was trying very hard not to be annoyed. "What exactly was your robot doing in our front room in the middle of the night? There is this concept called privacy."

"There's also a concept called 'keeping civilians out of danger.'" Tony came around the end of the table, and snatched up the discarded mask in one hand. "Six civilians hurt in Chicago, Cap. Six, remember? And who knows how many after New York, and London, and DC."

Steve gritted his teeth. "I remember." He couldn't help it. For his whole life he had been driven by the desire to protect others. It was the memory of the innocents he had failed that pushed him to keep training, to keep fighting, to keep pressing forward.

For a moment longer the two faced one another, and then Tony twirled the mask between his hands, setting it on the table between them with a metallic _clunk_. "JARVIS can help. If nothing else, he can help keep rubberneckers from sticking their noses where they don't belong."

There was merit to the idea, and Steve recognized that, although he approached it with caution. "See what you can do," he finally said, rubbing a tired hand over his face. "You might have something there. But keep it out of our place at night, okay?"

Tony pulled a face and nodded, although he didn't quite promise. Instead he frowned, stabbing a finger at the air. "Wait, what are you wearing?"

Steve looked down at his robe. "Tony, it's the middle of the night. We were in bed."

"No, no - is that a _nightshirt_?" Incredulously, Tony bent over the table to stare at the striped hem hanging out below the edge of the captain's robe. "Seriously - just when I think we've got you civilized, and then you go wear something like that."

Steve's jaw took on a defensive angle. "It's comfortable, and Peggy likes it" he argued stiffly, and turned to the door. "Goodnight, Stark."

"Goodnight," Peggy echoed. "Oh, and Tony - go to bed. JARVIS has a point; warm milk works wonders."

 

* * *

Bruce passed Steve and Peggy as they left the lab. He stared after them for a long moment, and then slowly looked at Tony, who was rubbing his chest with a grimace.

"What was that all about?" he asked cautiously, scanning the room. He wasn't sure if he had ever seen Peggy traipse around the tower anything less than fully dressed, let alone in the middle of the night.

Tony pulled the front off of the Iron Junior mock-up on the table, and adjusted welding goggles over his eyes. "I sent the bot to their room. Needed to find out how unsuspecting civilians would react."

Bruce felt his eyebrows twitch. "And?" he prompted.

The soldering gun spat fire, and Tony fiddled with the knob. "And then Rosie the Riveter went and shot it straight through a vital wiring junction, and she and JARVIS teamed up on me."

A chuckle bubbled up in Bruce's throat, and he turned away so Tony wouldn't see. "You're lucky it came back in one piece," he commented instead, going through the papers on his desk. Not finding what he was looking for, he began rifling through his untidy bookshelf, flipping through some of his precious books. He had been able to hang onto very little from his old life, but a few of his books had survived, and rattled around the world with him. It was kind of nice, he thought absently, to have a shelf where they belonged.

Tony looked up from his work, the flame dangerously close to his fingers. "Looking for something? Isn't this late for you?"

Something that looked suspiciously like a scribbled napkin fell from between the pages of the book Bruce was holding, and he glanced at it briefly before sticking it in his pocket, replacing the book on the shelf. "No," he said. "Just hunting down a number."

 

* * *

"I don't know if this idea of his is going to work," Steve confessed, padding barefoot up the stairs after his wife. "Tony thinks he can solve every problem by throwing technology at it, and he never thinks of people or their privacy."

Peggy paused on the landing, breathing a little hard. Steve made a mental note to take the elevator next time she was with him. He knew she still wasn't feeling well - although if he told her his train of thought, she would probably insist on climbing every staircase in sight.

"He gets it from his father," she told him, stubbornly beginning the next flight.

"Howard was never that bad," Steve protested, rounding the turn behind her, but she shook her head.

"You didn't see him after the war," she explained quietly. "After you went down, and they dropped the A-bombs, he was desperate to make things better. He just…" she hesitated, searching for words. "He didn't always go about it the best way."

They reached their floor at last, and Steve held the door for her. He felt weary, frustrated with Tony for his erratic behavior, frustrated with himself. Peggy, reading his mood, stepped closer, running her hands soothingly along his tense shoulders until they began to relax. Then a playful light crept into her eyes, and she stood on tiptoe, backing him into the wall and kissing him very thoroughly and suddenly before taking a quick step out of his arms. He blinked, dazed, and she couldn't help laughing at the surprised look on his face.

"Hurry up, Captain," she told him, fighting the smile that threatened to swallow her entire face. "Or I'll steal all the pillows."

He chased her, dodging and laughing, all the way down the hall and swept her off her feet when he caught her, exquisite happiness bursting in his chest.

Life wasn't perfect. The Avengers didn't always get along, Bucky was still out there somewhere, and the scepter was missing, but having Peggy Carter Rogers by his side brought a whole new level of joy into his world.

No, life wasn't perfect, but it was really, really good.

 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because you just know Tony couldn’t have started the Iron Legion without some sort of misadventure along the way. Ha!
> 
> Thanks for reading! And if you like it, please let me know. In the past I’ve generally posted less on this site because I get more reviewers on FFnet - but I’d be willing to reconsider my priorities and post here more often if I knew people were enjoying it. :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

* * *

"So, man - what're your plans for Thanksgiving?"

Surprised, Steve shook his head. "Nothing particular," he confessed. "We might go out to a restaurant or something."

Sam blinked over the Skype connection. "You're kidding me. Is that what you did last year?"

There wasn't really a good way to answer that one, Steve realized.

To be honest, last Thanksgiving hadn't been much to speak of for either of them. He had come home from a strenuous mission with the STRIKE team in the wee hours of the morning and gone straight to bed, waking up in the late afternoon. With no friends or family to spend the day with and no fresh food in the apartment, he'd ended up doing laundry and eating endless peanut butter sandwiches in an attempt to get his protein and carbohydrate levels back to where they ought to be.

Peggy's last Thanksgiving had been just as uneventful. She had spent it doing overtime at the office, working on paperwork that her coworkers had shuffled onto her with the assumption that since she wasn't an American, she wouldn't have any special dinner plans.

"Um," said Steve, trying to find an answer that wouldn't sound completely pathetic.

Sam looked mortally offended. "Oh, _that_ is unacceptable. You're coming down to my place. Mom won't mind an extra super soldier, and she'll love Peggy."

Steve frowned. "Thanks for the offer, but we can't just barge in on you."

"Oh, you'll barge." Sam sounded very positive. "You will barge in on us, or I will come out there and haul you back myself."

"Is that a threat?" Steve tried to make it serious, but couldn't quite keep the corners of his mouth from curling up. He had missed Sam, all the way down there in D.C.

Sam shrugged. "Not from me, it isn't. My mother though, she'll be real put out - and you don't want to offend that lady. No, sir. You thought Hydra was bad, but you never seen her when folks don't show up to dinner."

The mental image of a shorter, fiercer, female version of Sam popped up in his head, and Steve suddenly couldn't help smiling. He hadn't had a family to celebrate Thanksgiving with since before the war.

"We'll bring something," he promised, but Sam shook his head firmly.

"I'd tell you to bring your appetite, but we both know that won't be a problem," he pointed out teasingly. The last time he and Steve had gone to an all-you-can-eat place had been the stuff of legend. "You just show up, and we'll show you what a real Wilson Thanksgiving dinner is like."

 

* * *

The door to the small, featureless room slid open.

The prisoner from Chicago looked up curiously as a woman with dark hair stepped in, neatly and professionally dressed. Behind her stalked another woman, but this one the prisoner actually knew by name. Natasha Romanoff flipped her red hair back and settled in the corner of the room, locking the door firmly behind her.

"Good morning," said the one with the dark hair. Apparently she was British, unless she was faking the accent.

"Go step in front of a cement truck," the prisoner retorted immediately, leering as he looked her up and down, eyes lingering on her curves. He hadn't met her before – SHIELD had sent other interrogators, but so far none of them had been quite good enough to get anything out of him. Romanoff's presence was a little disconcerting, though. The stories about her weren't pretty.

The British woman took the only other chair the room provided, facing him straight on. As far as the prisoner could tell, she wasn't even armed.

"Let's get this straight," she said crisply. "We don't have a lot of time. You're going to tell my friend and I everything about Loki's scepter and the other Hydra bases you know about."

Incredulous, the prisoner laughed, still eyeing her figure. "In your dreams, lady."

The Englishwoman didn't appear flustered; instead she tilted her head and smiled discomfitingly. Behind her, Natasha grinned broadly, settled herself more comfortably against the wall, and pulled out a knife to clean her fingernails.

Despite himself, the prisoner felt a flicker of worry.

 

* * *

Clint Barton was eating popcorn.

He'd brought a great dish of it into the observation room, and was currently being very generous with it. He could afford to – he and Thor were the only people in the tower who liked their popcorn flavored liberally with tabasco sauce and cayenne, and Thor was off on yet another attempt to find the scepter. The alien was certain that he would be able to tell where it was if he could only get close enough. So far there had been no luck.

"Want any?" Clint offered the bowl to Steve, who was watching Peggy with fierce pride as the two women slowly and methodically reduced their prisoner to a babbling mess without even touching him.

"Thanks." Steve automatically took a few kernels and then choked, reaching for his water, eyes streaming. "Ugh, I keep forgetting what you do to perfectly good popcorn. Whatever happened to butter and salt?"

"You're welcome." Clint gleefully spoke around his own mouthful, pulling the large bowl into his lap and setting his heels on the table as he watched the two most capable interrogators on the team do their work. "Has Nat done her grin-of-fear thing yet? It's my favorite part."

To be completely honest, Peggy and Natasha were terrifying together, even though neither of them raised their voice even once. Exactly forty-nine minutes after they walked in, they re-emerged with a full confession, leaving the Hydra agent sitting in a pool of his own perspiration.

Unfortunately, the man hadn't known anything about the scepter.

On the good side, he did have information on three other previously unknown bases.

The Avengers spent a week and a half cleaning up the new bases and combing through the retrieved data, hunting for further leads. While nothing turned up on the scepter case, they did find very definite traces that the Winter Soldier had been held at one of the bases for some time a few years before. The equipment was all still there, dusty and shoved into a closet, and Steve's face turned ghastly in its fury when he kicked the door down and found it.

Peggy found him there later, when the rest of the Avengers were busy cleaning up the aftermath of the fight. Shoulders tense, he stood staring at the chair with its awful restraints, so completely focused that he twitched in surprise when Peggy slipped her hand around his clenched fist.

She had been rummaging through the paper files while Natasha copied off the hard drives. Now, as she stood at Steve's side, her jacket pocket rustled stiffly. Some of the papers would bear a little private investigation.

"There was no way," she reminded him quietly, after a few minutes of silence. "You had no idea he was alive."

Steve nodded stiffly, still staring at the chair with hot anger.

"I know," he admitted at last. "Doesn't change the fact I wasn't there for him, though."

Peggy didn't answer; only worked his fist open until she could lace her fingers between his, and they stood hand-in-hand, grieving for their friend yet again.

 

* * *

They got back to the tower very late Wednesday night, and Peggy went straight to the kitchen, discarding her coat carelessly over a chair as she went. Steve was a little slower, hanging his own things up as well as hers. Between the two of them, he was the tidier one.

By the time he joined her, she was already pulling out the canister of flour, tossing an apron at him so it landed on his head and shoulders.

"Wash that dirt off your hands, soldier," she ordered, twisting her hair back into a knot, "and start peeling. I don't care what Sam said; we are _not_ about to show up empty-handed at somebody else's Thanksgiving dinner."

Steve obediently tied the apron on and groped for a peeler from the drawer. "Our first Thanksgiving," he observed, and Peggy couldn't resist coming across to kiss the ridiculous grin off his face.

She ended up getting flour on both of them. Steve didn't care.

They almost fell asleep in one of the kitchen chairs while waiting for the cooking time to finish, worn out with the hectic pace of the last few weeks. Steve's legs sprawled out, arms slung around Peggy as she curled drowsily in his lap, her head heavy on his shoulder, cold hands cuddled up against his chest.

The timer eventually went off with a shrill beeping and Steve groaned, jostling his wife gently to wake her. "Mmm," she complained sleepily, but roused herself enough to get the pie out of the oven.

"Do you think it's too pale?" she demanded, examining the crust with concern after landing the dish safely on the cooling rack. "It might be too pale. Mr. Jarvis's pies looked more golden, I think."

Steve looked at her, standing in their kitchen dressed in her combat clothing and an apron with flour on her face and a teaspoon jabbed through the knot in her hair. Then he looked at the clock and yawned.

"It's perfect," he told her, and meant it. "Come to bed, sweetheart."

 

* * *

"Drop that pie and I'll cream you," Peggy threatened briskly, trying to figure out how to open the car's trunk. "I presume this is intended to open?"

Steve crouched, carefully balancing the dish in both hands as he examined the back of the car. "Probably. Knowing Tony, you'll have to talk to it or something."

Peggy flipped her hair out of her face and bent, running her hands across the tailgate. Then she scowled, propping her fists on her hips and giving the tire an experimental kick. "Oh, this is ridiculous. JARVIS?"

"Of course, Miss Carter." The trunk popped open at once with a smooth _swish_. Peggy sniffed and stepped around to the passenger door as Steve grinned, carefully setting the pie in the back so it wouldn't move around as he drove. Usually they went places on his motorcycle, Peggy warm against his back, her arms around his waist - but this ride was going to be a little long for that.

The sky was just beginning to brighten as they drove out of town, engine purring smoothly. Holiday traffic would be a nightmare later in the day, so they'd opted to get an early start. Peggy yawned, curling her feet up beneath her and leaning over the center console to lay her head on his shoulder. He smiled affectionately, settling back into his seat as he felt her doze off.

They'd had a busy week, and a late night. If anybody deserved to sleep, it was her. Besides, the drive from New York to D.C. was four hours on a good day. Today being Thanksgiving, it was bound to take longer.

They had plenty of time. Peggy could rest.

 

* * *

The Wilson house was white, set in a modest neighborhood with a carefully trimmed lawn and a driveway already packed with cars. Steve pulled up at the curb, and they both sat and looked at the house for a while. It had been so long since either of them had spent much time with a lot of ordinary people - people who weren't associated with the army or the SSR or SHIELD or the Avengers.

"You ready?" Steve asked at last, and Peggy squared her shoulders, feeling oddly as if she was walking into battle.

Sam met them at the door.

"Hey, guess who finally showed up?" he called, steering the captain straight into the kitchen, Peggy coming behind with the doubtfully pale pie. "Mama - this guy turned up on my doorstep. Can I keep him?"

Mrs. Wilson was a tiny woman, with all her son's feisty humor sparkling out of her eyes, and she immediately put Steve to work mashing potatoes, which he did with great energy after the long drive. Peggy found herself just a bit at a loss at first, trying to figure out what to do with herself in a normal, bustling household, but Sam's relatives all seemed to be cut from the same cloth as he was - warm and funny and utterly welcoming.

It was one of those jam-packed Thanksgivings. Every chair in the house was brought out and shoved in around the assortment of card tables set on either end of the dining room table to extend its length. It took three tablecloths to cover the collection from end to end, and nobody's silverware matched - and none of that mattered in the least.

Peggy and Steve ended up sitting on the piano bench, which was slightly too high. Peggy's plate was tilted across the gap between two card tables, and every time Steve shifted, his knees lifted the edge of the table an inch, but it all seemed part of the festivities. Sam's father said grace, and Sam's cousin carved the turkey with joking solemnity, and Peggy watched as her husband literally blossomed under the normality of it all, relaxing inch by inch and chuckling warmly at the antics of the younger Wilsons, who were eating olives off their fingers and flashing pearly teeth in gleeful laughter.

Sometimes she wondered what Steve would have been like if the army had never taken him. Cocking her head, she examined her husband as he took another helping of hominy. He would have made a good father, she was sure.

After dinner, Steve caught Sam's eye and tipped his head slightly toward the door. The three of them ended up in the garage, squished between the Wilson's second freezer and a minivan.

"You got another lead?" Sam asked, and Steve handed over some of the papers Peggy had retrieved from the base with the leftover Winter Soldier equipment.

"We think he was held here for a short time," Peggy explained as their friend leafed through the packet. "It's not much to go on, but we were hoping you might look into it."

Sam nodded, pulling a face at the picture of the twisted, dusty machinery. "Mm-hmm. That's some nasty-looking stuff, right there."

The man was a gem. Ever since the downfall of SHIELD, he had stuck by Steve Rogers, willingly hunting down dead end after dead end in an attempt to find the man who had almost killed them both. Sam probably didn't even have the faintest idea how much his freely offered assistance meant to the captain. Peggy could have hugged him for it.

"You know you don't have to do this," Steve pointed out.

Sam flipped the packet closed, folding it into quarters and jamming it in his back pocket. "Hey, man," he shrugged. "Any friend of yours is usually somebody worth knowing." Then a teasing glint crept into his eye. "Besides, that guy wrecked my car. I got a bone to pick with him."

 

* * *

Mrs. Wilson packed Peggy two heaping plates of leftovers, firmly ignoring the vague protests the agent dutifully murmured, and filled the empty pie dish with rolls. The pie itself had been completely eaten - color aside, Jarvis would be proud.

"I hate to think how much that man must eat," she tutted, shaking her head and swathing everything in plastic wrap. "He'll probably eat all of this just on the ride home."

It was the closest any of the Wilsons had come to mentioning Steve Rogers' identity as Captain America. Whether Sam had briefed them all beforehand, or they all simply possessed an uncommonly large amount of tact, Peggy wasn't sure - but the fact remained that the two of them had been treated quite naturally and that alone made them both feel more comfortable, as if they were members of the family instead of celebrity visitors under a spotlight.

It had been far too long, Peggy realized ruefully as she dried another plate, since either of them had spent much time around the ordinary, every-day, remarkable kind of people that the Avengers worked so hard to protect.

"Probably," she admitted, thinking of the captain's insatiable appetite. Perhaps she could hide one of the plates under the seat, save it for later.

Outside the window, Steve romped on the lawn with some of Sam's younger cousins, showing absolutely none of the sluggishness that one would expect from a man who had eaten as much potatoes and turkey and pie as he had. The children hung around his neck, clambered up his back, caught at his ankles, just as children had in England, in France, in Belgium. Peggy's lips curled up fondly; apparently some things never changed.

Mrs. WIlson's bustling paused as she followed Peggy's gaze out the window to where Sam, roaring mightily, had just joined the wrestling match.

"My Sam's a good boy," she said at last, fixing Peggy with a carefully judicious eye. "A good man. And he likes to help people."

Peggy wrung out her dishcloth. "He is," she told the shorter woman sincerely, "and he does. I can't tell you how much Steve and I value your son's friendship."

Mrs. Wilson observed her for a long moment. Then she nodded approvingly and peeled back the plastic wrap on both plates to add an extra scoop of cranberry sauce.

"Good," she said, and that was all - but somehow, Peggy felt like she had passed a much larger test.

 

* * *

"We need to talk to SHIELD," Peggy decided on the ride home. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper, crawling slowly as thousands of people tried to make the most of their holiday. Idly, she wondered why Howard had never capitalized on his idea of flying cars. "They've been hunting down the leftover Chitauri artifacts, haven't they?"

Steve was driving one-handed, his free hand tucked comfortably around hers, playing with the wedding ring on her finger. At her words he paused, glancing sideways as he thought her question over.

"You're thinking whoever stole the scepter might be interested in other Chitauri weapons," he realized. It was a good idea - both the scepter and the Chitauri had appeared on earth at the same time, and massive amounts of Chitauri technology had been among the things missing after SHIELD fell and the scepter vanished. "SHIELD almost certainly has a list of suspected black market traders we could trace, but I doubt they'd give it to us."

Peggy bit her lip and then dimpled mischievously. "Oh, don't worry about SHIELD, darling," she told him, squeezing her husband's hand. "I can handle them." Then she tilted her head, eyes dancing. "How do you think I would look in spectacles?"

Steve grinned, pulling his eyes from traffic to look at her. He knew Peggy better than anyone else on earth, and had a pretty good idea where she was going with this. "Beautiful," he told her simply, in all honesty. "They'd never know what hit them."

 

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, folks!
> 
> For those of you not from America: Thanksgiving Day is a November holiday commemorating the early Pilgrim settlers who came to America in the 1600s to achieve the freedom to worship and build their society as they saw fit. It is traditionally celebrated with a large meal and family gatherings, and is associated with the end of the harvest season. Canada celebrates it too; their holiday is in October.
> 
> If you like this, or if you want to make an author smile, please review. :) Thanks!


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

 

* * *

 

A crash from the common room and a yelp from Pepper made Steve Rogers jog up the last flight of stairs and burst through the door, eyes scanning for whatever had startled the very common-sense woman.

" _No_ , JARVIS," Tony was protesting. "Return the suit unit to the lab." He was standing in front of one of the mock-up Iron Junior suits, tapping briskly at the slim phone in his hand. "When I tell you to do something, I don't mean I want you to use a suit to do it with. You're supposed to be smarter than this - do I need to overhaul your servers again?"

Pepper was crouching at the far end of the couch, looking decidedly annoyed as she mopped up her spilled drink. Steve, sensing the annoyance was not aimed at him, came to her side and took the cloth from her hands. "What's the problem?" he asked cautiously in an undertone, beginning to clean up the mess himself.

With a sigh and a nod of thanks, Pepper sat back, balancing flawlessly on her heels. "It's those bots," she explained, fingers absently checking her hair. She was dressed for work, and the spilled drink had fortunately missed staining her outfit. "Tony asked JARVIS to make a note of something, and next thing I knew, that - thing," she waved a hand at the robot, "crashed through from the loft. This is the second time this week I've had that glass replaced."

Across the room, Tony finally gave up ordering the robot to move. Apparently something about the interface had gone wrong; he summoned his own suit and proceeded to drape the Iron Junior unit across his shoulder, not unlike the way Steve had not so long ago.

"That's not supposed to happen, is it?" asked Steve neutrally, watching as Iron Man clanked up the stairs, carrying the metal skeleton back to the lab. He had known two Starks in his day - father and son - and one thing he knew about both of them was that neither one tolerated failure.

"No." Pepper confessed, lips twisting a little in frustration. "No, it isn't. JARVIS still doesn't completely understand the line between when he needs to use a suit and when to handle the situation without one. Tony's been working the bugs out for a week now."

Nodding, Steve picked up the broken pieces of Pepper's glass and retreated to the small kitchenette to throw them away and wring out the sodden cloth. Pepper watched him for a minute.

"Where's Peggy, anyway?" she asked abruptly. "I haven't seen her all morning."

Steve suddenly became very involved in tidying up, wringing out the small towel until some of the threads audibly popped. "She might be sparring with Natasha," he answered carefully, keeping his eyes on his work.

Pepper smiled fondly across at her friend, the lingering annoyance beginning to fade.

"You really can't lie, can you?" she asked, and then laughed at his reddening ears.

* * *

Peggy Carter walked briskly into the loading dock of the SHIELD base armed with a clipboard and a pair of glasses. It was a tried-and-true formula, and had always worked well for her. Things were a little harder these days, what with keycards and metal scanners and digital records and whatnot, but that didn't mean it was impossible.

The NYC SHIELD base had become the organization's default central location since the fall of the Triskelion and the helicarriers. As the liaison between the spy agency and the Avengers, Peggy Carter supposedly had free access to the base - but she was no idiot. The "free access" went only as far as they wanted, and then doors would become stuck, or the elevator would skip floors, or rooms would be "closed for cleaning" and people pretended they didn't notice her exasperation.

Hence the clipboard and glasses. Nobody expected the good old methods, these days.

Still, in case of emergency, Peggy carried her keycard in her pocket, though she had no intention of using it. If necessary, Natasha would swear she had been sparring with her at the tower all morning, and Peggy didn't want to leave a contradictory electronic trail behind her. Besides, she could take care of locked doors quite nicely on her own.

One of the keyed entrances was up ahead, leading from the loading dock into the maze of hallways that made up the SHIELD base. Thinking quickly, Peggy ducked into a nearby janitor's closet and helped herself, filling her arms with generic brown cardboard boxes full of paper towels before reemerging.

"Hold that door, please," she ordered in her most authoritarian form, hurrying forward with her clipboard propped on the top box, held in place with her chin - the perfect image of a harried agent transporting old files.

One of the agents who had just swiped his card turned to see her predicament, and set his foot in front of the sensor to keep the door open.

"Thank you," Peggy panted a little, hefting the boxes into a better position and stressing her American accent for all it was worth, flirting with her eyes. She was enjoying herself - it had been far too long since she'd done something like this, though she noticed her American accent had become decidedly more Brooklyn since her marriage. "One of those days, you know?"

"Oh, yeah," he answered, beaming down in what he evidently thought was a suave manner. Peggy dimpled brightly and let him open the next door for her too. Apparently agents hadn't changed much since the 1940's.

However unwittingly, he made Peggy's job incredibly easier, darting ahead to open every door she approached with confidence, apparently assuming that she wouldn't try to go through a door she didn't have clearance for. Only once did he offer to carry the boxes for her, but she fixed him with a laughingly stern eye. "It's above your level, Agent."

He was pleasant enough, but when he asked her out to dinner sometime, Peggy decided to end the conversation. It was getting a little too uncomfortable, and besides - she could tell from the color of his badge that they were nearing the end of the doors someone with his clearance level could open.

"Maybe later," she demurred, and left him with Clint's number as a joke, making a mental note to get JARVIS to record the call when he phoned. Tony would get a kick out of it. Then, ducking into an empty office suite (thank goodness for lunch breaks), she watched through the frosted glass until he left.

"Somebody's going to have to teach you the meaning of security, young man," she mused as his shadow disappeared down the corridor.

No wonder Hydra had managed to get such a foothold in her former organization - with this kind of incompetence, it was only remarkable that it had taken them so long.

Dropping the boxes in a convenient corner behind a printer, Peggy pocketed a box of paperclips and unscrewed a lightbulb from somebody's desk lamp, hefting it thoughtfully before slipping it into her pocket. Yes, these could come in handy. A lightbulb never hurt any situation.

With one more look out the door, Peggy set off down the hallway. She had a few more floors to go, and an office to find.

* * *

Jelly filled doughnuts were probably the best invention since flying cars - except possibly for the reverse-engineered Destroyer weapon - and nowhere in the world made them quite like the little hole-in-the-wall bakery down the street. Fortunately they had rebuilt after the Battle of New York, because things wouldn't be the same without a big box to start the work week off with.

Not that he'd had a chance to buy them for some time - flying around the world in pursuit of bad guys was keeping him pretty busy.

Balancing the precious box precariously in one hand, Phil Coulson punched in his code on the number pad by the handle - no newfangled keycard for his office - and swung the door open. Then he jolted to a stop and froze, eyebrows leaping up his face.

"You're going to drop your doughnuts if you're not careful," said the woman behind his desk, coolly looking up over the top of the top-secret documents she was reading. Behind her, his filing cabinet was open, and a couple bent paperclips stuck out of the lock.

Moving slowly, unable to take his eyes off her, Coulson carefully laid the box down and stepped into his office, closing the door behind him. The woman set the files down and reached out a hand.

"I suppose I ought to introduce myself, Agent Coulson," she began, and her handshake was very professional.

"I know who you are, Agent Carter." Coulson tried to look blasé, but couldn't help the sheer glee bubbling up the inside of his ribcage. "I'm a big - a big fan. I was at your wedding. With Captain Rogers. I mean, you were with Captain Rogers, I was in the back. Of the building." He snatched desperately at dignity and missed. "It was kind of awesome."

Peggy bit her lips so she wouldn't smile at the awkward introduction. "Aren't you supposed to be dead?" she asked instead, trying to move the conversation away from herself. She'd heard of the agent's supposed death, but Natasha had pointed her in this direction when the assassin learned what Peggy was trying to discover.

Coulson shrugged a little, trying to reclaim his usual attitude. "It's complicated. Didn't really take. Besides, so are you."

"Touche." Peggy did, indeed, understand all about people living longer than they were expected to.

"It's supposed to be a secret," Coulson continued. "I'd appreciate it if you kept it to yourself."

Peggy leaned forward in Coulson's chair, steepling her fingers, very much in control of the situation. "Interesting that you bring up secrets." She lifted a file from her lap and slid it across the table. It wasn't one of his; she had brought this one with her. "Tell me about your search for Loki's scepter and the Chitauri artifacts - and then tell me what you know about this."

"I can't do that," the agent shot back flatly, flipping through the papers inside. The man was good, Peggy would grant him that, but she knew better - she'd seen the barely perceptible surprise in the lift of his eyebrows. After all, he didn't know a single trick that she hadn't learned ages ago.

"Of course you can," she parried immediately. "I understand you're the man to talk to about things like this."

Coulson shrugged again. "And I can't tell you. Where did you hear about it?"

Peggy put her elbows on the table and laid out all her metaphorical cards for him to see. "Look, the Avengers are on the verge of breaking with SHIELD for good, and running their own investigation for Loki's scepter. They feel betrayed that you deliberately concealed the fact that it was missing. At the very least, Thor had a right to know."

Coulson's face betrayed nothing. Peggy continued, her eyes never wavering from his. "You've lost Steve's trust, you never had Stark's trust, and even Romanoff and Clint are starting to harbour doubts. We need proof that SHIELD is worth staying in touch with, or you will lose all of us."

The director took a seat on the other side of the desk, facing Peggy. "What do you want?" he finally asked. She nodded, satisfied.

"We want anything you have on the location of the scepter, and immediate access to any further information you uncover regarding either it or Chitauri technology. The scepter will be turned over to Thor upon discovery. Also," she gestured to the file still in the director's hands, "I want to know about that."

"Why do you want it?" Coulson was very direct. Peggy was just as quick.

"Insurance," she retorted. "You've hid it well; I know just enough to know it's big, and the last big thing you didn't tell the Avengers about nearly leveled this nation's capital and almost killed my husband. If our organizations are to work together, we need to have mutual trust."

Coulson thought about it a minute longer. "Okay," he finally said.

Peggy raised her eyebrows. She had expected more of a fight.

"I have a condition, though," Coulson added. "Two conditions. Don't tell Fury." He got to his feet and moved to a shelf by the door. Peggy watched him closely.

"Is that both of the conditions in one?" she finally inquired. He turned, holding something flat and square almost reverently between his hands.

"No," he admitted, and laid the object in front of Peggy on the desk. "This is the second condition. I was wondering if you would sign this."

Peggy looked down at the record album lying in front of her and very nearly choked.

"I am not putting my name on this drivel," she protested once she could speak. Coulson leaned against the edge of the desk and smiled mildly, offering her a marker. She could tell he was trying to act casual, but the delighted sparkle in his eyes gave him away.

"That's my condition," he repeated, almost apologetically. "And it wasn't too bad."

Peggy skewered him with a pointed look. Coulson backpedaled. "I mean, besides the blatant - it really had a - and sure, it got the stories all wrong and it didn't do you justice at all, but - I grew up listening to it. Nostalgia; the radio station used to rebroadcast recordings of old shows when I was a kid."

With a sigh of deep resignation, Peggy finally gave in, inscribing her name rather stiffly beneath the title of the album: _The Complete Collection of the Captain America Adventure Program 1944-1952._

"I don't suppose it ever got any better," she mused tartly, capping the marker with a decisive snap. "I can't believe they thought it worth recording."

Coulson beamed like a little boy as he reached for the album.

"It's mint," he pointed out. "Well, near mint. One of the corners got a little dented when the Triskelion fell. I still haven't completely forgiven the agent who dropped it."

As far as Peggy was concerned the entire show and every recording ever made of it, mint or otherwise, could have rested quite comfortably at the bottom of the Potomac for the rest of time, but she refrained from saying so. "About my information," she prompted instead, and settled back in his chair once more.

* * *

Coulson was as good as his word. By the time Peggy stood to go, he had given her all the information she had come for. Fury would not necessarily be pleased if he knew - the erstwhile director preferred to keep stray fingers out of his metaphorical pie, but the way Coulson saw it, who better to trust than one of the original founders of SHIELD? Technically, she outranked both of them, anyway.

"If you don't mind my asking," he began offhandedly as Peggy stepped neatly around his desk, "how did you get in?"

Peggy raised her eyebrows, slipping something small and silver into her inside pocket before tucking her folder tightly under her arm. "Your code wasn't hard to guess."

"One of my people is a hacker, and even she hasn't been able to figure it out," Coulson pressed. He'd had that code since his rookie year at SHIELD, and nobody had broken it yet. For Peggy Carter to be the one to figure it out - Phil wasn't sure if he was more thrilled or embarrassed.

Readjusting her spectacles over her nose, Peggy shrugged and swept up the additional files he had given her, adding them to her own. "He may be your hero," she reminded him, "but he's my husband and my teammate. There's not much I don't know about Steve Rogers."

Impressed, Coulson caught his breath, fully aware that his eyes shining despite himself. "Um, do you - you need me to usher you out? I'd be happy to show you around while you're here. You're - you're one of the main reasons we're here at all, you know - you and Cap."

Peggy reached into her other pocket and touched the lightbulb thoughtfully. She already had a planned escape route, and between the lightbulb and the leftover paperclips, she knew she'd have no problem. "I appreciate the offer, but there's no need," she decided crisply. "I'll find my own way. Good afternoon."

Then she was gone, leaving Coulson shaking his head in awe, her signature on the album the only sign she had actually been there. He hoped he had done right by telling her about the contents of her file - but if there was anybody he could trust with the information, he figured it would be be Agent Carter.

* * *

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who haven't seen the first season of Agent Carter (very minor, not-really-spoiler follows), the Captain America Adventure Show features briefly on the radio a few times, and drives Peggy absolutely nuts with the unrealistic and skewed narration. So of course, it's that album that Coulson asks her to sign. :)


End file.
